


During the War

by lalala_broadway



Category: Ballet Shoes - Noel Streatfeild
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 19:22:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/601223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalala_broadway/pseuds/lalala_broadway
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pauline, Petrova, and Posy during the war.</p>
            </blockquote>





	During the War

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Thassalia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thassalia/gifts).



> A gift for Thassalia! Hope they and everyone enjoys!! :)

1939---------------

Posy Fossil, Prima Ballerina of the Marmora Ballet in Prague. 

It was a pretty title and an honor, of course, but to Posy it was simply what she deserved. 

Posy Fossil was the best ballet dancer in the world. From even before she had donned her first pair of pointe shoes, she had known that. Now, it was appropriate that all of Prague knew that as well. 

As the Prima of her company, she got first pick of all the leads. She was the Sugar Plum Fairy when she wanted to be, she was Odette when she desired the role, and she got every other lead in every other ballet the company put on. 

She had everything that every little girl in pink tights and ballet shoes could only dream of. To Posy, of course, it was her birthright, not her privilege. 

Which is perhaps why it confused her so much when it was all taken away.

The War struck – truly struck Prague – in 1939. 

Posy remembered it well because it was the year the company was meant to have put on Cinderella.

Popelka, as Cinderella was named in Czech, was Posy’s favorite ballet. The story of a young girl born into sad circumstances. She is tossed and turned by the conditions and her station in life, but works hard none the less. Then one day, magically, she is given all her dreams. 

Like Cinderella, Posy had emerged from the darkness of her youth. She had risen above them all, naturally, as if she was born to do so all along. 

It was the role she was born to play. And as Prima Ballerina her company, she would play it. There was no question, no way the role would elude her. 

Except then came the war.

Men went off to fight. Women and children were left alone. Families were torn apart. 

No one had the time or will to go to the ballet. 

At first, Posy hadn’t noticed. She never bothered to care about ticket sales or filled seats. There was a grand hall with a stage for her to dance upon – that’s all that mattered. 

She danced her beautiful rendition of the Sugar Plum Fairy for their annual production of the Nutcracker, knowing that in the Fall, previews for Cinderella would begin. 

The company didn’t last until fall.

Rehearsals for Cinderella were cut short. This caused Posy to throw a fit, of course.  
But then the announcement came to them mid-summer, brought to the company by Manov himself and a handful of their patrons. 

With ticket sales at an all time low and nearly empty audiences at every performance, the company could no longer afford to open its doors to the public, at least not during the war. Productions of the Marmora Ballet would halt, at least for the remainder of the season. 

Posy was confused, angry, and most of all, she was scared. 

In all her life, Posy Fossil had never been afraid of anything. She had never quaked in her pointe shoes before an audition. She had never cried at night, wondering if she was good enough. She had never doubted that an audience loved her or that a producer wanted her in his show. 

But on the midsummer night that the Marmora Ballet shut its doors, Posy was scared for the first time. 

“Will we ever dance again? As a company, I mean?” Posy had asked that night, sharing a bottle of wine that night with Manov as the other dancers packed their bags to leave. They would have to find work elsewhere, dancing anywhere they could find work. 

“You will always dance, Posy,” her teacher had murmured grimly, swirling the dark red liquid around his cup and gazing into it with a frown before gazing up at the grand arches above the hall where his company had once performed. “But you will never dance again like this.”

And he was right. 

Posy never danced Cinderella. She never danced ballet on the great stages of Europe again. 

 

1941---------------

Petrova Fossil, female aeroplane pilot. 

She had never liked wars. She didn’t believe they were effective – what with all the guns and the killing, how did anyone plan to resolve anything? 

She most assuredly, most certainly, didn’t want to fight. 

Yet, when the war had first broken out, she had many friends that did. So many, so very many, of her dearest friends had wanted to fight for their countries. They had wanted to make a difference – to make a difference for their countries in the only way they knew how. 

And she had respected them for it. Almost all of them had given their lives up by now, flying planes through the fiery skies of war, losing their lives in the pursuit of doing something great. 

Petrova still had no wishes to fight, but her wish to make a difference herself was thousands of times stronger. 

Still, she had no idea how. How to make a difference, as a female pilot, and how to help her country in a way no one else could. 

Then she had met a man.

If you had told Petrova Fossil ten years ago that she would be the first of her sisters to fall head-over-heels in love, she would have scoffed and laughed heartily in your face. 

But this man had been everything. 

An engineer, and innovator, and most importantly, an inventor, he had captured Petrova’s interest from the start. 

“What are those?” She had asked him the night they met, watching him scribbling away at the paper before him. 

He had glanced up from his work, brown eyes meeting hers shyly as he pushed a pair of reading glasses down his nose. “Plans,” he told her in the deep, rich, but soft tone he spoke with then and all his life. “For a new aircraft. A better one.”

His eyes had sparkled and then widened as she dragged her chair closer, eager all of a sudden to see and hear. 

They talked long into the night. 

Liam worked in the field of experimental aviation. He designed new aircrafts, and if the designs were good enough, he sold them for the British military to use in the war.

As it turned out, he was in desperate need of a pilot to test his experimental aircrafts. 

And as it turned out, Petrova was ready and happy to have found a place to help her country. 

Four new aircrafts later, they were happily satisfied with the state of the aeroplanes the British flew, and more importantly, more content with the lives they had built together than anything they had ever known before. 

And when Liam had gotten down on one oil-stained, overall-clad knee, Petrova knew that no one would make her happier. 

 

1945---------------

Pauline Fossil, shining star of the silver screen.

She was America’s sweetheart, Hollywood’s golden girl, and an all-around shining beacon of hope in the eyes of so many these past years. 

She was a symbol of the goodness in the hearts of men and women, she was an angel, and she was a beauty. 

If Pauline were to put it herself, she was a film actress. 

She was just another student of Madame Fidolia’s Academy who had gone on to pursue a career in the arts. She was just another actress. She was just another girl. 

Yet, somehow, after she had arrived in Hollywood, she had become something more than that.  
She was adored by millions, all around the world, which she was grateful for, even if she was baffled by their enthusiasm and had no idea what she had done to earn it or how it had come about. 

Pauline quite liked being in films. 

She missed the stage terribly, more than she would ever admit to the flashing cameras and paparazzi. There were so many things about Hollywood that never quite settled with her.

She didn’t like the cameras following her every movement or getting up close to her face. She didn’t like doing the same scene again and again so that it could be captured from a dozen different angles. She didn’t like having to film things out of order, being completely smitten with someone in the first scene they filmed in the morning, and then meeting him for the first time in the next. 

She loved acting, though. She loved pouring her heart and soul into a role, letting everyone see her as she truly was, and at the same time as she never would be, when she portrayed a new character. She loved falling in love over and over on screen, even if it was disjointed and her every movement was followed by a camera. 

So in the end, it suited Pauline just fine. 

And with the war going on, there were worse places to be. 

For Pauline had decided some time after she arrived in Hollywood: if she was to be an actress, there was little she could do to help the world. She was unlikely to ever be recorded in history books, unlikely to ever make a name for herself off of the silver screen.

But she could still make a difference.

And when she heard that her films inspired people, comforted them even for just a little while as they escaped from a nightmarish reality to a happier fantasy upon the screen, it made her proud.

For even if she never ended up in the history books, she still made a difference.

She would make a difference for her country in the way she had been trained to do, in the way people loved her for and in the way she had learned to love, as well. 

She would act. 

 

Epilogue---------------

The Fossil Sisters were old women.

At least, older than they had been. Posy refused to call herself truly old.

Together in America, reunited at last, they lived out their days. 

Posy had moved into Pauline’s apartments years ago, during the war, after fleeing Prague when her home was overrun by the pain and destruction of invasion. When she had arrived on Pauline’s doorstep, the girl who was once so full of dreams and life had seemed so haunted and aged by the horrors she had seen. Yet Posy persevered, as she always had, and determinedly began again. 

She danced in the background of motion pictures for a long time, usually in Pauline’s films. She was known around set as “that ballerina from Prague”. There was not a person on the lot that hadn’t heard her speak reminiscently of the beauty and wonder of pre-war ballet and the glorious days of the Marmora Ballet.

Now, retired at last, she told the same stories with the same fervor – as if she had lived them just yesterday. 

Nowadays Petrova (and Liam, of course, for the couple was inseparable) had begun to speak reminiscently of old days, as well. She remembered her days of aviation, of innovation and creation. She remembered the joy of having people report back that the planes she and Liam built together were flying faster, truer, and saving lives.

Without a doubt, her fondest memory from during the war was standing with her husband and receiving their medals of honor for their outstanding work in the field of experimental aviation.

In a close second, her next favorite memory, was seeing a picture of that day printed neatly in a history book. True to the sisters’ vow, the name Petrova Fossil was printed neatly underneath.

Pauline was ever-proud of her sisters, as well as nostalgic in her memories of old Hollywood, but perhaps happier now that she was once again reunited with her sisters. 

The name Pauline Fossil was indeed remembered in history, even if not learned in books, for her films remained beloved classics to audiences around the world. 

She loved to meet young, up-and-coming stars and to remember when she had been equally starry-eyed, like a fledgling baby bird. Yet, there was nothing she wanted to do over, even as she watched. 

Pauline Fossil was proud of what she and her sisters had accomplished.


End file.
